Bihar BJP minister makes false claims using KTR’s Hyderabad flyover photo

“Happy to be throwing open yet another flyover in #Hyderabad tomorrow that has been completed as part of #SRDP (Strategic Road Development Plan) RHS flyover at Bairamalguda junction, 780 mt long coating 26.5Cr.” (sic)

By   |  Published: 18th Oct 2020  12:43 pm

Hyderabad: When you can’t build infrastructure like in Hyderabad, steal photos of the work done here, attach pictures of yourself and the Prime Minister, and claim that you did it. That’s what a BJP minister did in Bihar, by tweeting a photograph actually shared by IT Minister KT Rama Rao of the RHS flyover at Bairamalguda Junction in Hyderabad.

Rama Rao had tweeted on August 9, a set of pictures showing the new structure and saying “Happy to be throwing open yet another flyover in #Hyderabad tomorrow that has been completed as part of #SRDP (Strategic Road Development Plan) RHS flyover at Bairamalguda junction, 780 mt long coating 26.5Cr.” (sic)


However, on October 15, Suresh Kumar Sharma, Bihar’s Minister of Urban Development and Housing Department, shared a poster of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with an image of a flyover, with the poster claiming that 17,554 streetlights were installed in Muzaffarpur, and saying that he had worked and would continue to work to develop Muzaffarpur.

Whether the streetlights were actually installed and whether any work has been done in Muzaffarpur is a different issue, but social media and fact checking websites caught up with Sharma quickly enough, and pointed out that the picture was wrong.

Leading non-profit fact checking website Alt News said a simple reverse image search was enough to expose Sharma, throwing up multiple reports that prove the image was of the RHS flyover in Hyderabad and tweeted by KT Rama Rao. They also attached Rao’s tweet to prove the ‘theft’.

BJP’s Mayor for the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation Bijalben Patel too had landed the party in a similar embarrassing situation not long ago, when she tweeted a photograph from faraway Seoul, claiming it to be of a night view of the Sabarmati Riverfront in Ahmedabad. Alt News says BJP leaders in Chhattisgarh also had done some similar ‘magic’, showcasing images from Canada to show as highways in Chhattisgarh.

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